Senate Republicans are dashing to get appearing Environmental Safety Company (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler confirmed as Scott Pruitt’s alternative, regardless of a partial authorities shutdown that has stored the EPA closed since December 29 and staff unpaid.

Wheeler’s confirmation listening to is scheduled for Wednesday, just one week after President Donald Trump nominated him to imagine the top place on the EPA on a everlasting foundation. After the listening to, the Senate committee will then vote on Wheeler’s nomination. If his nomination is authorised by the committee — which is an effective guess, with the Republicans within the majority — the ultimate step can be for the complete Senate to vote on the nomination.

“It looks like they are trying to rush him through,” Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel for authorities watchdog group Residents for Duty and Ethics in Washington (CREW), advised ThinkProgress. “Anytime you have a candidate who you are trying to rush through, it means that you don’t want people to look too closely at his record or his industry ties.”

From the attitude of implementing Trump’s anti-environment agenda, Wheeler has labored as effectively as Pruitt to roll again environmental laws. And Wheeler seems to be pushing Trump’s agenda extra successfully as a result of — up to now, at the least — he hasn’t gotten himself embroiled in an analogous multitude of scandals that sidetracked Pruitt from his mission to successfully dismantle the EPA.

Together with concern over EPA staff getting used to prep Wheeler for the listening to as an alternative of specializing in public well being issues, environmental teams worry the confirmation course of is getting expedited to keep away from disclosures about Wheeler’s conferences with business officers during his time as appearing EPA administrator.

In late December, a federal courtroom ordered the EPA to launch greater than 20,000 emails and assembly calendars as a part of a lawsuit introduced by the Sierra Membership in search of data referring to any communications Wheeler and different company officers have had with corporations regulated by the company. Placing collectively a schedule for the discharge of these data has been delayed by the federal government shutdown.

The Trump administration was required to offer the courtroom a schedule for releasing Wheeler’s emails and calendar final Wednesday, together with an settlement to supply at the very least two teams of paperwork by some level in February and all paperwork inside 10 months. Due to the shutdown, the courtroom ordered the administration on January 2 to offer it with a schedule for releasing the emails and calendar gadgets inside three enterprise days after the federal shutdown has ended.

Wheeler was initially nominated by Trump to be EPA’s deputy administrator in October 2017. He was lastly confirmed by the Senate six months later, in a contentious vote, in April 2018. Early final July, Wheeler took over as appearing EPA administrator upon Pruitt’s resignation.

Underneath the Federal Vacancies Act, staff that require Senate confirmation can carry out their duties in an appearing position for a complete of 210 days. When Trump formally nominated Wheeler to develop into the everlasting EPA administrator, he had labored as appearing administrator for a complete of 184 days.

However Trump’s nomination of Wheeler on January 9 reset the clock. Underneath the regulation, Wheeler now has 205 days — a brand new 180 days added to the 25 days remaining within the 210-day restrict previous to the formal nomination — to function each the president’s nominee for everlasting administrator and as appearing administrator.

Given the almost seven months that Wheeler can function appearing administrator, “it’s particularly egregious that the committee is rushing this nomination process amid a government shutdown,” a spokesperson for the Democrats on the Senate Surroundings and Public Works Committee stated in an e-mail to ThinkProgress.

The rushed confirmation additionally has implications for EPA staff and operations. Upon studying that Wheeler’s confirmation listening to can be held just one week after his nomination, top Democrats on the Senate Setting and Public Works Committee wrote a letter to Wheeler asking why political appointees and profession staff have been aiding him together with his confirmation listening to preparations.

Regardless of the federal government shutdown, EPA staff who fall underneath the “excepted staff” class within the company’s contingency plan have been serving to Wheeler put together for the listening to. During shutdown furloughs, “excepted” staff — what the federal government views as “essential” jobs — are required to work with out pay.

“It is difficult to understand how preparing you for next week’s confirmation hearing credibly falls within any of the categories listed in EPA’s Contingency Plan, particularly the category of employee that is ‘necessary to protect life and property,’” the senators wrote.

If the EPA is diverting assets that are meant to “protect life and property” to organize Wheeler for his confirmation listening to, “the already-dire consequences of the shutdown on public health and the environment could be even greater,” the senators argued.

In a press release emailed to ThinkProgress, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), the rating Democrat on the Senate Setting and Public Works Committee, stated “it’s outrageous that, while the agency’s doors are shuttered, EPA seems to be directing the few employees who are working without being paid to prepare its acting administrator for a Senate confirmation hearing instead of monitoring Superfund sites, cleaning up environmental spills, evaluating chemical safety and protecting air and water.”

Utilizing excepted staff to prep Wheeler “is an odd interpretation of what is ‘essential,’” Jeff Ruch, government director of Public Staff for Environmental Duty (PEER), a nonprofit group that assists environmental company staff, stated in an e mail to ThinkProgress. “The EPA has had to halt some monitoring of drinking water and Superfund sites. Those strike us as far more essential,” Ruch stated.

Nonetheless, the White Home Workplace of Administration and Price range (OMB) gave a authorized seal of approval to the EPA to permit these excepted staff to assist Wheeler put together for the listening to during the shutdown.

OMB Common Counsel Mark Paoletta advised Matt Leopold, EPA’s basic counsel, in a January 12 e-mail, that getting ready for the listening to was an “excepted activity” in step with serving to the president discharge his constitutional duties, and it contributed to serving to the Senate discharge its personal duties in contemplating nominees. The EPA offered a replica of the e-mail to ThinkProgress.

“Acting Administrator Wheeler’s participation in the scheduled hearing is necessary for the Congress’s funded function to be effective,” Paoletta wrote. Wheeler’s “absence from his own confirmation hearing would significantly damage the Committee’s confirmation hearing,” he added.

On January 11 — two days after Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), chairman of the Senate Surroundings and Public Works, introduced Wheeler’s confirmation listening to can be the next week — environmental leaders, together with Sierra Membership Government Director Michael Brune, despatched a letter to Barrasso and Senate Majority Chief Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The letter urged them to postpone the confirmation listening to till the federal government shutdown has ended and the company’s scientists and public well being specialists have been allowed to return to work.

It’s profoundly unfair for Wheeler to audition for a promotion whereas EPA staff are denied their paychecks.https://t.co/DWQS1vd3KB

— Sierra Membership (@SierraClub) January 14, 2019

“It is profoundly unfair for Mr. Wheeler to audition for a promotion to lead an agency while the entire agency workforce is locked out and denied their paychecks, making it difficult to pay their bills and mortgages and provide for their families,” the environmental leaders wrote of their letter.

Environmental teams additionally need extra time to analysis Wheeler’s dealings with business after he took over as appearing EPA administrator six months in the past upon Pruitt’s resignation.

In line with environmental teams, the Trump administration might worry that a delay in Wheeler’s confirmation might result in the disclosure of extra details about the previous coal business lobbyist’s assembly with officers with polluting industries during his time as deputy administrator and appearing administrator.

Wheeler already oversees the company at which he’s been nominated to serve, Carper emphasised. “Rushing this nomination while the agency is shut down is unnecessary,” the senator stated in his assertion to ThinkProgress.

In response to Trump’s formal nomination of him to be EPA administrator, Wheeler submitted his monetary disclosure type final Friday to the U.S. Workplace of Authorities Ethics. The function of the monetary disclosure system is to stop conflicts of curiosity and to determine potential conflicts by offering for a scientific evaluation of a nominee’s monetary pursuits.

CREW’s Canter believes Senate Republicans ought to have given fellow senators and the general public greater than 5 days to evaluate Wheeler’s disclosure report earlier than his confirmation listening to. “Why are they trying to push this guy through without giving adequate time to vet his financial disclosure report and other issues relating to what he’s done in his deputy position and his acting position?” she stated.

When Canter labored as a senior ethics official for the Obama administration, she and her colleagues tried to have all of the paperwork prepared for evaluate no less than seven to 10 days earlier than a nominee was to seem for a confirmation listening to.

“By rushing these hearings,” she stated, “it sends a message that there are problems and you don’t want people to look at them too closely.”